https://sig2perspectives.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=1758220Advocacy and Reimbursement Committee: Advocacy for Whom?The Advocacy and Reimbursement Committee members are Travis Threats (Chair), Heather Clark, Wendy Ellmo, Cindy Busch, and Ann Oerhing. The committee met in the spring of 2004 and the question “Advocacy for whom?” was one of the central questions we had to answer for ourselves. There are two focuses to ...2004-10-01T00:00:00Committee Corner

The Advocacy and Reimbursement Committee members are Travis Threats (Chair), Heather Clark, Wendy Ellmo, Cindy Busch, and Ann Oerhing. The committee met in the spring of 2004 and the question “Advocacy for whom?” was one of the central questions we had to answer for ourselves.

There are two focuses to advocacy: advocating for the profession and advocating for individuals with neurogenic communication disorders. Advocacy for the profession includes increasing our visibility among referral sources such as physicians, increasing knowledge of our profession in the general population, and seeking improved reimbursement for our services.

Advocacy for the population that we serve includes legislative work to improve access and services to those with communication disorders, interaction with private company workers and government workers to improve their ability to interact with those with neurogenic communication disorders, providing talks with groups such as stroke clubs to help empower these persons to be able to better advocate for themselves, informing persons with communication disorders what they should expect from their interaction with all health professionals including speech-language pathologists, and providing information to the general public so that they better understand these disorders in order to improve their interactions with persons with communication disorders.